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StumbleUpon has launched a new advertising system, which the company says helps cost-effectively deliver advertiser content to targeted audiences, while increasing the opportunity for content to go viral.

StumbleUpon finds and recommends ad content it deems relevant to targeted audiences’ interested based on demographic and topic areas. StumbleUpon users by simple nature of the site choose the content topics of interest to them, and are delivered random content based on this). This makes for an interesting way of delivering ads.

"With StumbleUpon Advertising, we’re solving the challenge of how advertisers can get more content that is relevant and impactful in front of their targeted audiences," says StumbleUpon CEO and Founder Garrett Camp. "We are dedicated to providing the tools that help advertisers identify and reach their audiences, measure campaigns effectively and gain real-time user feedback."

"After testing the StumbleUpon Advertising system for eight months, we know it’s an extremely cost-effective way to drive qualified traffic and let the content speak for itself," said Jason Clement, Director of Findability at Wieden + Kennedy. “Since StumbleUpon Advertising targets content to users based on their personal interests, we can be confident that our content is reaching the most receptive audience possible. And when an audience enjoys our content, the reward is a healthy amount of free, organic traffic."

"StumbleUpon Advertising makes it easy and cost-effective to deliver the right content to a new audience of our target users," said Ben Tider, Assistant Director, Audience Development at Time Inc. Lifestyle Digital Group. “With streamlined campaign set-up and management, we can better optimize ads and recommend content based on the individual user. Because readers can self-identify the types of content we show them, they are more engaged and likely to share it with friends."

"StumbleUpon Advertising enables brand advertisers to serve up compelling content while users are searching or ‘stumbling’ around the Web," said Josh Spear, Founding Partner of Undercurrent. "With StumbleUpon Ads, an advertiser’s content is not an interruption, but rather a fully integrated experience that affords an opportunity for additional exposure when audiences like or respond well to the content. It is comparable to a banner that becomes more cost efficient based on positive viewer feedback. The new user interface also greatly enhances the service by delivering advanced analytics and more detailed campaign management tools."

StumbleUpon claims to generate nearly 600 million recommendations per month for its community of almost 11 million members.

Related: About a year ago, we interviewed StumbleUpon’s VP of Business Development about advertising on the site.

Google is launching ads on the home page, search page, and browser page on the mobile version of YouTube in the U.S. and Japan.

"This is a great way for advertisers to reach YouTube viewers across multiple platforms," says Google Strategic Partner Development Manager Taylor Cascino. "In fact, at launch YouTube will immediately provide one of the largest audiences for a mobile ad campaign anywhere on the mobile web. And because YouTube mobile attracts early adopters, the site can deliver to advertisers a coveted demographic of tech savvy trendsetters. We’ve already seen some early campaigns run on YouTube’s mobile site by advertisers like Sony (for the DVD release of "District 9") and Kia, both of whom were able to easily reach their target audience, no matter where they were looking for video."

YouTube’s mobile site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, and you can probably expect that growth to continue along with smartphone usage. Don’t forget that YouTube is the number 2 search engine on the web. That’s a lot of people searching for videos.

"The increased usage of high-end devices like the iPhone and Android is also making mobile advertising easier and more effective for advertisers," says Cascino.

Ads on the YouTube mobile site will come in the form of banner ads sold on a full-day basis. YouTube tested the mobile ads with brands like L’Oreal and Land Rover, and the company says these showed strong results in terms of click-throughs, user experience, and brand awareness.

Yahoo’s line of thinking with regards to the big Microsoft/Yahoo search and advertising deal is that it will benefit both Microsoft and Yahoo’s advertisers, as well as consumers and publishers.

It will benefit advertisers because it will increase search volume, with results from both Bing and Yahoo being taken into consideration. It will benefit consumers because by combining advertisers from both properties, there will be a greater pool to deliver sponsored results from, which Yahoo says will mean increased relevance. It will benefit Yahoo, Bing, and their publisher partners with increased liquidity, participation, and relevance. That is basically the sum of it, according to Yahoo Vice President of Search Advertising David Pann.

WebProNews recently sat down with Pann and discussed these things and how the deal will affect advertisers.

According to Pann, the migration across all international markets will occur over the next 24 months or so, but they will not rush it at the expense of quality, they say. "Our focus is really about developing a plan that is smooth, seamless, and with quality. So we anticipate doing the U.S. migration sometime before the holiday season in 2010," says Pann.

In the above interview, Pann goes on to talk about how things will be split between Yahoo and Microsoft. He also addresses some privacy concerns, related to data sharing between the two companies.

WebProNews also interviewed Yahoo Sr. VP of Search Products Shashi Seth and Director of Search Marketing David Roth, both of whom talked about the deal in more detail. You can catch both of those interviews, as well as a recent keynote from SMX West where the deal was also discussed, here.

The Wall Street Journal has the Blogosphere abuzz with rumors of Google testing a new set-top box with Dish Network, which would allow people to search television and online video content like YouTube. Google has given the usual "we don’t comment on rumor or speculation" statement on the subject.

According to the WSJ, only a small number of Google employees and their families are testing the box, which runs on Google software (Android is implied), and lets users create personalized lineups of shows. The testing has reportedly been going on since last year. Aside from these things, the details are sketchy at best, which can only mean one thing: let the wild speculation commence.

Assuming that this service ever comes to fruition, it could open up a lot of new opportunities for Google to dominate or at least heavily compete in areas in which it isn’t dominating already. Rather than doing too much speculation myself, allow me to just list some questions and open this up for discussion:

- What if Google gets exclusive deals with Dish Network as well as other major satellite and cable providers? Google TV Ads already has deals in place to provide ads on close to a hundred cable networks.

- What if Google makes more deals to boost its movie rental selection on YouTube? How big of a player would that make YouTube in the movie rental space? This will be something to keep an eye on with or without this box as Internet-ready TVs permeate the mainstream.

- Will Yahoo and Bing be looking at opportunities like the Google/Dish Network box? Are they already?

- What would widespread integration of web search and television mean for TV advertising?

In the not-too-distant future, we may start to really see TV advertising getting more targeted, which has long been the medium’s biggest downfall. People often record shows simply so they don’t have to watch the commercials. What if the ads were targeted at the individuals watching the TV? What if they were relevant? Search advertising paved the way for this kind of relevancy, and may just be a key to the future of TV advertising in a world where viewers want their programming on demand.

There I go off on that speculation. This all sounds good in theory, but a lot of puzzle pieces have to fall in place, and a lot of stars have to align for this to become a reality. Deals must be made, and money must be spent. That’s not to say the concept is far-fetched.

Consider that advertisers are finding online to be a better option than even the super bowl in some cases. This past Super Bowl, Pepsi skipped a TV spot for the first time in 23 years. TV is going to have to adapt.

Tell us what you think.

Spending on online advertising and marketing will surpass print in 2010 for the first time, according to a new report from Outsell.

Companies will spend $119.6 billion on online and digital strategies, from search engine keywords to webinars, while committing $111.5 billion to print such as newspapers and magazine ads. Overall, U.S. spending on advertising and marketing will increase in 2010, but only by 1.2 percent to $368 billion.

Outsell forecasts spending, share, and growth for five media categories including online, events, print, TV/radio and PR/other.

"Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding," said Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst, Outsell.

"As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options."

Print magazine advertising will be up 1.9 percent to $9.4 billion even with the popularity of online channels.

Other key findings include:

*51 percent if B2B marketers rate Facebook as extremely or somewhat effective, followed by LinkedIn (45%), Twitter (35%) and MySpace (25%).

*B2B advertisers see cross-media marketing as most effective; 78% combine three or more major marketing methods.

*Methods creating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers’ own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows: direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters. 
 

In a single day, Bing has increased the number of fans of their Facebook page by 500 percent. How? By using clever social media advertising embedded within the popular Facebook application Farmville.
The advert appeared yesterday inside the game Farmville, encouraging players to become a fan of Bing in exchange for free farm cash (the virtual [...]

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Bing Proves Power of Facebook Advertising

Online analytics firm Omniture and Facebook said today they have partnered to offer marketers tools to improve Facebook as a marketing channel.

Initially the two companies will focus on the ability to automate Facebook media buying and access analytics that measure customer engagement on Facebook. The partnership builds on Facebook analytics the companies introduced last year to help marketers join the conversation and have more relevant interactions with their customers.

The partnership is aimed at helping companies more easily integrate Facebook as a marketing channel in an effort to connect and have relevant conversations with Facebook’s more than 400 million users.

“Working with us, Omniture has been able to develop a rich and immersive set of tools that will help our clients better understand the value of their Facebook advertising campaigns,” said Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of business development and monetization.

“By creating a single dashboard to plan, deliver and measure campaigns, Omniture can make advertising on Facebook easier and ultimately increase ROI for clients.”

Omniture customers can now use the company’s SearchCenter Plus, a combination of its search engine marketing management application with added functionality for buying Facebook Ads.

In addition, Omniture customers can now generate reports specifically designed to understand ad effectiveness for some of the unique elements of Facebook such as pages and applications.
 

Update: I finally got word back from Facebook, who confirmed that the feature is indeed only a test. "The "Promote" feature is just a test and is unrelated to our Promotions Guidelines," the company says. They  did not give any specifics about a possible full launch.

Original Article: Facebook appears to either be rolling out or testing a feature that lets Facebook Page owners promote specific posts. When you make an update, a link that says, "Promote" can be found by the links for "Comment" and "Like".

Once you click that Promote link, it brings up a dialogue box, which asks you to create an ad, with targeting descriptions, the ad duration, and the maximum price of "Up to $50.00 USD".

Editor’s note: Feel free to become our fan on Facebook, by the way.

You can click on "Edit Ad" to go to the standard Facebook Advertising Page, or you can click "Create Ad" to go to this page:

Interestingly enough, this comes after talk last week about how you have to have promotions approved by a Facebook account representative, which would reportedly cost you about $10k. This would appear to eliminate that notion.

The feature appears to only be available for some admins of some pages. We’re not sure if they’re rolling out the feature or just testing it. I’ve contacted Facebook to learn more about the feature, and I’ll update when I receive a response. Any other Facebook Page admins getting this feature? Let us know.

Twitter is expected to launch an ad platform this month (some have speculated this will happen at SXSW). While this hasn’t been confirmed, the industry has been waiting for quite some time to Twitter to launch such a monetization model.

That’s not to say the industry has been sitting on its hands as it’s waited. Third-parties have taken it upon themselves to offer services for Twitter, that Twitter itself doesn’t offer. That includes apps of course, but it also includes Twitter ads. 140 Proof is one such company, and it calls itself the "first scalable ad solution built exclusively for Twitter."

"The Proof network aggregates the Twitter client and application ecosystem (roughly 100+ million Twitters users) and then segments users into a dynamic audience that advertisers can buy the same way they buy keyword advertising," a representative for the company tells WebProNews. "Advertisers are excited to final have a mechanism for extended their conversations on the Twitter social network and the Twitter ecosystem is eager to have a targeted, non-obtrusive advertising solution that allows them to monetize their applications while still respecting  the ethos of the Twitter community."

The 140 Proof Network features hundreds of advertisers, who the company says are reaching their target markets on Twitter. "Some are large well know brand names that everyone is familiar with and some are small businesses that are trying build their presence on Twitter or advertise in a very local or targeted manner," the rep says.

We asked the company if they think Twitter’s ad platform has a chance to damage businesses like theirs and others that have been making a business based on sponsored tweeting (Sponsored Tweets from Izea comes to mind).

"We welcome Twitter to the advertising world," the rep tell us. "Clearly we think that their entrance in the marketplace is a great validation of what we are doing, but we also believe that the market is large enough to support many major players. Further, we feel that our experienced advertising and engineering team, our advantage of being fully operational for months, and our patented, proprietary technology will give us an advantage over all competitors."

Quite a display of confidence from 140 Proof – an advantage over Twitter at Twitter ads? What do you think?

A little more than a month ago, Google introduced click-to-call phone numbers in local ads on smartphones.  Now, the popular program’s undergoing an expansion as Google’s made it easier for large companies to take advantage of the offering.

A post on the Inside AdWords blog explained today, "[W]e’re bringing the same click-to-call benefits to national advertisers through phone extensions.  Phone extensions allow you to add a phone number that will be displayed whenever your ad is triggered, regardless of the user’s location."

Here’s the upshot, then: "This enables customers to connect with your business by phone directly from the ad and can be especially useful if you have a call center to handle customer inquiries."

Advertisers should profit as a result of this development, considering that phone calls are more likely than clicks to lead to purchases.  Google looks set to make a lot of money, too, since this move will encourage corporations with big advertising budgets to give click-to-call ads a shot.

Perhaps the only losers will be the companies that don’t adapt quickly.  They’ll risk losing sales to competitors with more eye-catching and actionable ads.